A Light in the Storm
by MrSchimpf
Summary: Callie·Addison. When Callie has to bail Addison out of jail, she's surprised to find out why her best friend was actually there. Understandings are found and their friendship takes a new step forward. FEMSLASH


**Title: A Light in the Storm  
Author: **Nate  
**Pairing:** Callie/Addison. Otherwise known as Caddison, or just by the normal everyday layman as 'liquid sex'  
**Spoilers:** As is my usual case, I'm going to tell Shonda that she was just stupid and that here, Sadie and Arizona never existed. This takes place in an alternate universe around the time between _Before and After _and _An Honest Mistake _during the March crossover with _Private Practice_'s episodes _Acceptance _and _Ex-Life_. I don't even get into real specific details of the episodes at all.  
**Rating:** R (profanity, sexual situations, flirting, and violence, misogyny and homophobia from an outside character. Of course that outside character's words are not my own and I do apologize if any offense is taken by their actions and words)  
**Disclaimer: **Oh, I've always wanted to do this (grins evilly). It got boring knocking down Amy and the _Gilmore _creators, so now I get to disclaim my little heart out about this one! I'm so excited...I'm so excited...I'm so...scared (Jessie voice). Yeah, Shonda's a bit more hard-core about the haters. But I think I can handle it...

Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland created both _Grey's _and _Private Practice_, along with Mark Gordon. ABC Studios/Touchstone Television filmed them both. And sometimes you just want to ask if Shonda what the heck she's thinking. Especially with Callie and Addison. Both girls have been more abused by her than Paris's character in Daniel Palladino-penned episodes. Lord, that guy was awful.

Some _Gilmore _mentions here too; A-SP, DPDHP, H-P, WBTV...blah, blah, blah. All other products and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  
**Archiving: **My personal LiveJournal, FF•net, RalSt and ga_caddie. Note there is a **very **good reason I'm not daring to post this to erica_callie, even though Erica is mentioned in passing.  
**Summary:** Addison is depressed about her life and takes out her anger and despair at the bar at Joe's and a sleazy Seattle Grace doctor. Ending up in jail, Callie bails her out and they find more than an understanding together.  
**Author's** **Notes: **This is the fourth prompt Danielle gave me for her MTEL reward drabbles out of six, and...no getting around it, this isn't a drabble.

It also wasn't what I eventually expected after getting the prompts _jail, torn pantyhose, full body search_. You'd fully expect I'd end up writing 24,000 words of sweaty Caddison sex which just might violate the Geneva Convention.

Of course, I'm also a hopeless romantic, thus this story turned into a schmoopfest pretty fast. I'm sorry if I didn't get the smut down. But as this is my first Caddie, I'm still finding my footing writing them and hoping to meet the Danielle/SnoopyThePooh gold standard of writing them together. I thank both of them for dragging me into this fandom in the first place, and keeping me sane through the awfulness that has been the writers on _Private Practice_ to remind me that Kate Walsh will be sex on legs everlasting.

Again, there is a good reason for me not to dare post this on any community Hahn-related; Callie is damaged here by her. She's not going to sugar-coat it at all. If that gets me smited by the Callica shippers, I'll take the strike. Not every story must illustrate her as infallible. She left Callie, and that is unforgivable in any kind of relationship.

As for Dr. Wharton...comparisons to a certain blonde moron who ruined Rory Gilmore in the last seasons of the series are completely purposeful ;).

* * *

Addison paced around. How did she ever get here? When would she get out?

And why, oh why did she instead of looking like the professional physician she was, instead had the look of Gina Carano after a bar fight on Thorazine, combined with the fashion sense of Michelle Pfeiffer?

_What made me go off? _She thought to herself as a derelict, someone holding a policy debate about health care in their own mind, and a prostitute in her finest tube top and fishnets looked at America's most pre-eminent neo-natal surgeon pacing around a holding cell in the King County Jail, her blouse all out of sorts, skirt on in the most incredibly wrong way, and pantyhose torn from a rough encounter with the brick wall next to Joe's. Her head hurt like hell, the backs of her thighs were all scraped up and her finessed hands were still working out the kinks of being stuck behind her back for twenty minutes in a police car and while she waited for what she was sure would be a photo that Derek and Meredith would hang on their refrigerator and mail off multiple copies to Oceanside, so Pete, Violet and Cooper had their own little picture to surely top Nick Nolte's lovely visage. Even though she still managed to look hot in it despite her completely bloodshot eyes and horrible makeup.

She heard a tapping on the door, a guard hitting it hard. The funny-looking man squared his jaw in her direction.

"Mont-gu-mree? Free 'ta go, been bailed out." He opened it up and guided her further.

"See ya doc," the street walker yelled towards her. "Remember, I'll give you the prison discount if you want it. I'm at--"

"Yeah, yeah, 8th and Marion." She rolled her eyes as the guard guided her by the back. "Shit, I'm in so much trouble now."

She then remembered she hadn't called anybody at all. Addison panicked as she quickly realized that there were only one of two people who could've paid her bail.

One formerly had his ring on one of her right fingers. The other was her former boss and able to have the ability to have her license revoked.

She wanted to cry or break down. But instead she took the walk of shame, ready to be embarrassed as a medical professional. The 1,200 foot corridor seemed to be lengthy and last forever, until she passed two more doors from the main jail proper and into the front desk. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for either a gruff voice and a lecture, or her husband's fiancée teasing her for letting go. The last door opened, and she kept her head bowed.

_Here goes my life_, she thought before the guard shoved her lightly to next to the door, when she heard the voice of doom.

"Damn, Addy. You're definitely hard-core."

Instead of a male voice, however, she had in her earshot that little casual tone that could make a dark day turn blue. She was expecting a confrontation or a fight over her future.

Instead as she looked up, deep brown eyes and a well-defined face stared at her, a little smirk playing across her incredibly cute cheeks, along with flowing black hair.

In any other situation this would have been the best case scenario.

"Sign here, current address. We'll send the citation your way--"

"I live in Santa Monica. I don't have anywhere to send this!"

"225 West Olympic, apartment 305. Her mail comes to me when she needs to deal with crap locally."

The officer wrote down the information given, then gave Addison back her purse and other personal effects along with a pre-warning. "KCC, four weeks, ninth floor, eleven o'clock. Appear for your charge and you'll probably get a fine."

"Excuse me?" Addison was shocked. "They told me I was in for assault, insulting a peace officer and public intoxication."

"We couldn't get either to stick, but the drunk charge stays." The woman smiled. "Goodnight, Mrs. Montgummry."

"That's Dr. Montgomery." She tried to find her dignity anew as she walked out of the building, but the woman who saved her bacon caught up quickly, turning her around and feeling a bit not in a good mood.

"Hold on there, Addison," she growled firmly. "I bailed you out, but only on the condition that I got you home. They refuse to see you head back to Joe's to finish it off."

"Whatever, thanks, Callie." She tried to brush off her good friend, but Callie had about 100 pounds, not to mention the ability to use a large amount of PSI's to break human bone in seconds, on her. The ortho surgeon stood in front of Addison in her SGH scrubs and a pissed off look coloring her face.

"I'm not leaving you."

"Callie, I have to get back to the Archfield and leave before--"

"You're not leaving tonight. It's 2am!" She grasped Addison's arm tightly as she pulled the woman towards her Land Rover like a ten year-old. "I'm not incredibly happy with you right now."

"Really, what gave you that impression?"

"I finally get some non-Mark-interrupted sleep in the on-call for the first time in three weeks. Three, fucking, weeks! I get woken by a page at 1:30 and have to make an unexpected trip here to 500 5th. Not because someone managed to fuck something outta whack in a pathetic suicide attempt and the jail doctors actually trained at Hamburger University, so they need to call in the pros. No, this time my best friend in the world manages to get herself all fucked up, take a swing at a fellow doctor and ended up in the downtown drunk tank."

"Tell me how you really feel," Addison shot off.

"Pretty damned embarrassed actually." She seethed through her teeth, all worn out from her four straight days at Grace. "Once this gets out you're doomed, Right now, you need to get back to the Archfield and stay out of trouble!" She opened the door for Addison on the passenger's side. The redhead got in and found the door slammed next to her. Callie whipped around the back of the vehicle and got in before turning on the engine.

Then she collapsed onto the steering wheel and took a deep breath to calm herself. Closing her eyes and flipping it to the classical on KING-FM, the calmest thing she knew she could find on the radio, she turned to Addison and looked at her.

"God, I'm so sorry." She shook her head. "Had to get it out there."

"I guess," Addison said in cool fear of her lovely lady friend. "Suppose everyone's right; you do have a Cuban temper."

"Ads, you have to see it my way. My friend is in jail and she needs to get bailed out. What am I gonna do? I'll bail you out, of course. But I need to rest. I haven't been off my feet for so long and to hear you actually got arrested? Well, that's just the icing on the cake."

"I am so sorry--"

Callie held a lip to Addison's pursed lips, and shook her head, tossing her tresses to and fro. "Not right now. Don't say anything and just calm your mind. I'm going to get you to the Archfield and we can have all the conversation you'd like once you get into your room."

"But--"

"Addison Forbes." Callie's eyes narrowed in annoyance and Addison knew never to ever argue the middle-name card. When Callie pulled it out, a victory in an argument against her was not to be found.

"Fine." She slumped down in the seat and looked out into the damp Seattle night, regretting how badly she had screwed up things all evening. She closed her eyes and tried to figure out how she could possibly show gratitude to the woman who had saved her from a night in the slammer and had somehow shrunk her charges from a felony down to a misdemeanor.

* * *

"You bribed the desk girl?" Addison shook her head as Callie described why she was only facing the silly drunk charge. "$1,000 to that woman just because you felt like it?"

"Hey, cash talks," Callie said proudly as she kicked back on the couch, her shoes and socks kicked off, leaving her feet bare except for fading green polished nails now chipped after a pre-St. Patrick's day pedicure. "She told me the charges were likely gone anyways via dismissal by the judge so I just cut out the miles of red tape and took them off for you."

"Someone's going to find out."

"Not likely. She gets to go on a little shopping spree so I doubt she'll tattle-tale me to the Sheriff."

"Still, I'd rather face the music than--"

"You know Webber though. He doesn't care if you're not at Grace anymore. He gets word to Naomi and suddenly you find your duties at Oceanside severely reduced."

"He wouldn't."

"Ads, he's all buddy-buddy with Derek now. He will, in the famous words of Paris Gellar, 'make your life...a living hell for you.'"

"OK, that's scary," Addison managed out a small smile. "You have her tone down way too perfect."

"Well it's watching reruns of that or watching the news. And there's only so many times I can hear the words 'Patient X is in X condition at Seattle Grace' daily. Not to mention that Paris would totally be my type if I was into robbing the cradle." She stared down her tall redheaded chum, twirling her tongue in her cheek as she had those thoughts she held back for her friend all anew.

But for now, she had a focus and a reason for being in the hotel room. She decided to stay lying down to rest her body, heaving in pain from having not left Seattle Grace for four days.

"So, why did you decide to take a trip to jail this evening?" She sucked on her lip. Addison hesitated.

"You don't really want to know. Honestly, Cal, you should probably just let sleeping dogs lie. I screwed up, I got caught and I learned my lesson." She shrugged. "Look, I'm going to pay you back for getting me out--"

"Don't pay me back, seriously. There's no need."

"But--"

"Uh, uh, uh." Callie shook her head, daring Addison to defy her authority. "You write a check, I'm never cashing it."

"Are you sure?" She tried to put on her puppy dog eyes, but that only caused Callie to laugh at her friend. "I really do want to pay you back."

"Then we'll pay it back with couch time. Fess up and tell me why you decided to see if incarceration was all it was cracked up to be."

"I must?"

"You must, or I will pester you for weeks to come about it."

"Oh, fine." Rolling her eyes, Addison detailed her evening, finally free from the drama that was Archer, along with Dumb and Dumber fighting it out over a woman who had long let them go free. She headed to Joe's on a quiet night at the bar, hopeful for some kind of peace.

It was peaceful for her indeed, but the lure of drinking to forget her worries also lured her. Just thinking about herself and her own needs she had a few drinks and a few beers, before moving to the hard stuff. Before 11pm had passed she had spent $40 at the bar and built herself up to a somewhat aware yet incoherent state of mind.

"No one was bothering me until this smug bastard walked in and decided that he'd throw his game towards me. Dr. Wharton, surgical podiatrist."

"Ahh, Wharton the Whore of the Fourteenth Floor." Callie chuckled a bit, remembering the new cocky foot doctor from a floor she never ventured anywhere near, but had to tolerate daily in the elevator. "Thinks he's a big hotshot, terrible game, pickup lines that a lounge lizard thinks are radioactive?"

"That would be the guy." Addison felt a little foggy as she recalled the conversation they shared as she unbuttoned her blouse while working out the kinks in her back. "So he sat near me and...well, I guess it's never a good idea alcohol with grief and pain, is it?"

"Not really." Callie watched Addison unbutton her blouse and then take it off. Throwing it to the ground, she felt a sudden spark in her mind as she took in her lovely friend in a lacy La Perla bra accenting her lithe and toned form. _No, no_, she thought. _Geeze, down there girl. She just got out of jail and you want to undress her? I know I've been playing celibate the last few weeks, but I can't do anything with her._

Her brown eyes took in the woman and she had an appreciation for how the sun of Santa Monica did so much for Addison's complexion. Holding back, she kept reminding herself she just picked the woman up at a place she didn't expect. She didn't even know how Addison ended up in jail yet, so she had to find out why before she went any further with trying to comfort her friend.

But Addison noticed the stare out of the corner of her eye. Her mouth pursed into a slight smile, but she didn't make a comment, going on with her story. "So Dr. Wharton sat next to me. Here I am drowning out my sorrows about Archer and my life, and he..."

* * *

**11:25pm**

"So you're the world famous Dr. Addison Montgomery." The younger man held out his hand to the woman. Addison, bleary from her drinks, focused her eyes to take in the man next to her. "Dr. Albert Wharton."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Addison slammed her glass down as she felt her peace interrupted by the presence of the skeevy man with the slick, spiked hair and a bedside manner which suggested 'jackass burning through Daddy's money.' Though he was handsome on the surface, he was also incredibly arrogant and regularly was confrontational with his superiors, making it clear that he would be the next star doctor of Seattle Grace. "You look young enough to be my son."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment. You look like a real classy woman. Heard a lot about you through the grapevine." A smug smile creeped across his lips as Dr. Wharton slicked back his long hair. "So your brother almost kicked it?"

"Excuse me?" Addison was offended, despite the revelations of earlier. "What makes you think I'm going to ever give you any kind of shot?"

"Because I've got wealth, I'm hot..." He lowered his eyes down to her feet, where open-toed red Prada heels encased her feet within black pantyhose. "And you have very beautiful feet there, Doctor. How do you not feel a bit of pain in those?"

"The good ol' fashioned way, I ignore the pain and rub them at the end of the day." Her voice sounded a little slurred as she sipped from the mouth of a bottle of a local microbrew. "Let's get something straight here, Doogie Howser."

"Ouch, going right for the younger insult." He wagged his eyebrows. "I like." Addison growled, narrowing her eyes at the smug little bastard.

"Seriously, your game is lame. You don't do it for me."

"What if I wanted to say that I'd love to feel those feet wrapped around my cock, getting me off?" Addison cringed as the man got closer to her. Nobody else was around, Joe away from the bar putting out new napkins. "You should let yourself go there, Doc. You have such sun-kissed skin and an incredible rack--"

"Lay it off now, Dr. Wharton." Addison held up her hand. Even through her drunken state she knew that she would not fall prey to the 'charms' of this man. "If you're into podiatry for incredibly sick and sexual purposes, you're one fucked-up boy."

"I'm all man," he asserted cockily. "You'll know that when I get inside of you." She then smelled the putrid fragrance of Coors Light on his breath and drew back from him. _Great, I've gotta bar-hopper on my hands_.She almost gagged from how aggressive he was.

"No, you're a boy who got by on his good looks and charm and glided through the only specialty that would enable you to party on your Daddy's yacht for as long as you could. I know your type, entitled and petty. You don't appreciate wealth and philanthropy at all. As long as you can get a woman in bed at night, you sleep well." Her eyes burned into him as she tried to make him see the light. "I don't go for your type at all, so back off."

"Ahh, playing hard to get." He winked at her. "Not only are you older, but your wiser. I get that. So what does it take to suck on your toes, Dr. Montgomery?"

"Let's see here..." Her voice, although a little drunk was still incredibly sultry. She decided to play with the boy a little. "Well I'm looking at your lips here and I'm thinking that you probably are the type to fuck and run. I get the sense you'd suck on my toes, but your tongue wouldn't work me off that well. I have a verrrry sensitive arch, for instance." She felt her courage with him rise up. "I feel my panties wetten when someone can work at bringing me off from that contact just right. But I look at you and I see that you don't know the finesses of being a foot fetishist. Speaking from experience from my exes, you just don't got it. You're base and you need to learn tact before you can even consider wooing a girl like this...much less a hardened woman like I am."

"I like a challenge," he argued, loosening the knot of his tie, convinced his game would wear the inebriated woman down. "Especially when it comes to getting you and that dyke friend you have in bed together. Her feet are also hot--"

Hearing the inflammatory word, she had a pretty good idea that this guy was bad news. She gritted her teeth and prepared herself for a verbal showdown.

"Excuse me?" A red eyebrow went up as her smile quickly disappeared. "What's that you have to say about my friend?"

"Well she's a dyke, right?"

"No." She dangerously felt territorial. "I think you're mistaken. She has no label at all. Who she loves is of no concern to you."

"Oh, can it, you PC bitch. She eats pussy, she's a dyke. Glad that snotty cunt she called her girlfriend up and left a couple months before. If she's still open to guys I'm sure she'd willing for me to turn her."

"Turn her? Sorry, she's not a vampire, she's a human being." Addison decided to get up before she said something she regretted. "If you think you have any kind of shot with me after disparaging Callie, you're very mistaken. Dr. Wharton, you're on the edge of being reported--"

"Please!" He wrapped his arms smugly around his chest. "I know you don't work at Grace anymore. I hear the idiots on fourth floor talk about you being this uppity whore who spreads her legs for anyone. You can't report someone for sexual harassment who you don't work with."

"Wanna test that theory?" Grabbing her purse and throwing money on the bar, she prepared to leave. "I know you're on probation for accosting a nurse. I also get the gossip weekly from Dr. Torres. You will not mess with me or you will be working at the free clinic pulling splinters out of a homeless person rather than the hottest women in Seattle."

"So what do you and Torres do on the phone, do you fuck each other?" He dared to invade her personal space even as she backed away. "Is that what you do? Tease all the guys, get play from the carpet munchers?"

"This is your last warning, Dr. Wharton." She tightened her grip on the purse strings, feeling ready for him to breach her space.

"You know why Dr. Torres really fucked Hahn, don't you?" He cracked his knuckles. "Sloan didn't want a thing to do with her and considers her a slut, so she decided to swing over and give the taste of pie a shot because she's a needy bitch who has to have validation and approval of her superiors since she flamed out of her chief residency. She couldn't stand the heat, so she fucks everything with a pulse to feel human. When she decided to eat out Attila, she wanted to--"

If this was the normal and calm Addison Montgomery in that room, she would have walked away rather easily, since Wharton was throwing little playground insults at her. If he had stuck to her, it would have been easy.

But obviously, Callie had spurned him somehow. She had a feeling since their fields often met in the middle, especially when it came near the ankle and the foot. Getting into a defensive position, she held out her hand.

"You say one more word about her--"

"About who? That bitch who doesn't appreciate me? She's so far up the cunt that she doesn't appreciate what a good guy like me could do for her?"

"She sees right through you," Addison asserted, her eyes narrowing. She had a feeling something was about to happen. "My friend, meanwhile is an emotional woman who acts with her heart. Not out of panic. Who she loves doesn't make a difference to me--"

"Whatever, bitch." He stumbled around the little space in front of the bar, no one surrounding him. "You just have a hard-on for her and you're pissed because she's not stupid enough to finger you. Well lemme take care of that feeling. You'll forget all about her once I cre--"

He wouldn't be able to finish out his rant. Addison had enough of his insults towards Callie. She didn't care about how steady she was or if she would leave the bar on a stretcher at that point.

_Nobody insults my best friend. Especially you, fuckhead._ She decided not to defend herself with her purse.

Instead, she took the remainder of the drink and threw it in Dr. Wharton's face, and then threw the shot glass right towards his nose, where it hit hard. Her jaw was squared in anger and she was prepared to be slugged. She dropped her purse onto the stool and then pushed him towards the back wall of the bar, wanting to take the situation away from a place where property damage would ensue. The glass cracked onto the ground as a clamor of activity headed towards the two participants.

She pushed him back against the wall and immediately pinned him against it.

"You stupid bitc--OWWWWWW!"

He found himself immediately kneed right in that critical place between his knees. Addison grasped him by the tie and deeply breathed against him. The man stood no chance at all as he tried to struggle, but the woman, hardened by her life as of late and looking for any peace, found it ripped away from her.

She was burned, and pissed. Naomi being cheated on by her cocky brother asserting he didn't need brain surgery, so many decisions she didn't want to make at work, and then to hear that her friend was being disparaged, it was too much for her to take. So she took it out on a skeeze who in other circumstances she might bed, but instead was now increasing the pain of with a tight squeeze of his testicles.

"You listen, Dr. Wharton." With her other hand she slapped him hard in the face. "Callie Torres is the most professional doctor in all of Seattle fucking Grace. She could give two shits about what the little interns are saying and spreading about her sex life. I will tell you right now that she works damn hard to--"

Finally, Joe had decided to break them up. While another patron was at the phone calling 911, he pulled at Addison hard to get her off Dr. Wharton. "Break it up Ads--"

"I can't, he's talking shit 'bout Callie!"

"He does this every night, tries to get a woman to go home with him, he's harmless." Joe tried to envelope Addison's arms, but it was no use. She pulled away again and this time got a shot on his foot.

"Harmless my ass!"

"OWWWW!" Dr. Wharton cried in pain. "I didn't say a damn word about your precious girlfriend!" Joe got a better hold on her this time and tried to keep her under control in her enraged state.

"Fuck you. Guess what? There's tape. With audio. And Joe here has you dead to rights, so you're going down." She stared him down as Joe nodded.

"Sorry, we do. Get a lot of 'he said-she said crap in here." Joe looked at the guy disapprovingly as the patron yelled that the police were on their way in a minute on foot. "Al, I've told you a million times not to bug the girls. Now you did it and I have 'ta throw you out."

"Son of a bitch, she started it!"

"I heard you try to start something. You knew her brother wasn't doing well, yet you pissed her off."

The blame game continued as Addison tried to stumble out, only to be met by a woman in blue at the door of the establishment. Things went slightly downhill from there as Addison tried to assert she didn't harm Dr. Wharton and tried to slip away, only to end up meeting another cop outside the bar. Cursing like she was a resident of Hell's Kitchen she asserted that the male officer used his nightstick to fill in for what wasn't in his pants, which the policeman didn't take too kindly to. Feeling resistance, she was pushed against the wall by two officers, earning the abrasions on her thighs and scraped up pantyhose as they turned her around and finally got around to the reading of the Miranda rights while giving her those stainless steel bracelets never found in the Tiffany window. Finally under control and calming down as she laughed while Dr. Wharton was taken away in cuffs also, she noted that his face was a little red from a certain spray and some good ol' roughing up to keep him in control.

"Gonna have to see Dr. Sloan now," she screamed. "Good luck getting that face fixed up, dumbass."

"Let's go lady, we've had enough fun for one night." The officer grabbed her by the shoulder and put her into the patrol car, where she then proceeded through the steps of arrest and near police headquarters quickly realized what she had done.

"Oh shit. I'm in so much trouble, aren't I?" She asked the officer if she had done anything wrong.

Thankfully the man had his own opinion. "My partner handled the other guy. It looks like you had the cause and the bar owner has the tape to prove it. But, we still have 'ta follow the procedures. Sorry, lady."

"Eh, I'm not worried," she off-handed. "Not about myself. But once everyone hears about this..." She shook her head as the car pulled into the sallyport and she prepared to face the shame of a mugshot and prints for the first time since being caught for underage drinking 22 years ago at a sorority party.

Being led into the station in handcuffs, she felt extremely ashamed and horribly embarrassed.

But at the same time, she felt even in her haze, that she was in the right. No matter what had ensued with Dr. Wharton, she had defended her best friend. No matter that Naomi was supposed to be under that title on outside appearances; in her time in California she no longer could say that was true. Callie had defended her through so many things in her time in Grace.

Now she had paid back the favor. Taking a calming breath as someone behind the camera motioned for her to pose, Addison had the clarity she had been looking for so long to find.

_She's always there for me_, she thought as the flash activated. _I would die for her if need be, and I'll defend her to the bitter end...  


* * *

_**3:34am, Archfield Hotel**

"No wonder I heard that yutz screaming in a holding cell." Callie began to put the pieces together after hearing Addison tell her why she was in jail. "I was talking to the clerk at the counter and she told me the guy screaming was 'some jerk doctor who's gonna be here awhile'. Apparently while he was in he spit at an officer and tried to name-drop and say his dad would have her badge. Didn't help him." Sighing, Callie brought fingers to her temples, looking at her friend, who was now undressed except for her underwear, tossing the ruined pantyhose into the small garbage can next to her bed. "So that was Dr. Wharton."

"It was." Addison had thankfully sobered up after Callie brewed some coffee for her in the room's Mr. Coffee. Laying on the bed she felt guilty for having to drag her friend into a situation where she was already personally involved. "I really don't like him."

"Nobody does. Bailey realized that when he didn't back off me a couple months after Erica left. He began to hit on me and it interfered with my work, so she banned him from our floor when I was working. I have a much better rapport with Dr. Lorenz and she actually told the Chief that she would kick his ass if Wharton worked with me again." Shaking her head, she got up, feeling horrible for having ranted at Addison for waking her up in the on-call room to pick her up. "I didn't think of him at all until he decided to make his presence known at Joe's."

"I guess one of the interns keeps tabs on you," Addison responded, worriedly. "They have an in with Wharton and they deliver every moment of your weakness. I guess he saw you and Hahn as a phase and tried to get into your pants. Then they found out I was here for the week and...there you go. I end up being a proxy and kick his ass while fucked up." She swallowed two Excedrin down with a bottle of Smartwater, thankful that the usual throwing up effects of the hangover failed to come to her. "If I would have known about him I would have never engaged."

"You couldn't have known. I'm a big girl so I never told you about how he harassed me. He was just a little punk kid in a field everybody laughs at. He'll pay in the end."

"But what if Webber doesn't care about his probation?"

"It's doubtful. Another nurse told on him a couple weeks ago for squeezing her ass. This crap is sure to be grounds for termination." Frowning, she got up and stretched, working out her body as she looked at her friend relaxed within her bed. "I told the girl at the desk how Archer was in the hospital and everything. That you're usually not the type to ever get in a fight. I think it helped that I was on your side."

"I just feel like Webber is going to look for any weakness in me, and attacking his doctors--"

Callie stopped Addison's self-doubt. "I'm going to take a personal day tomorrow; I need it. I'll talk things over with Joe and from what you told me, he'll defend your conduct. If you get into trouble at all from this shit, you don't deserve it." She sat down on the bed next to Addison, her eyes downcast as she took in her poor bruised friend. "I'm not glad that you ended up in the slammer for awhile because you felt the need to teach a lesson to that little jerk. But I am proud that you didn't back down or resort to doing something stupid."

"You thought I'd sleep with him," Addison assumed.

Callie shook her head. "Not that. Probably something worse. I don't know, but I've just seen you the last three or four days and it hurts to see you in this much pain. You should be happy, but you're not. Your brother is acting like an ass, Sloan and Shepherd are acting like idiotic high school jocks, and you just seem like you need some peace. Yet you can't get it. And I just wish...I wish..."

"Callie." Addison stared at her friend, her voice suggesting exhaustion. "I was looking forward to spending time with you. I have since...since, well." She shook her head. "Hahn was a knucklehead for just abandoning you."

"She had cause though," Callie rationalized. "We held back things from her and--"

"No, **you **didn't hold back at all. You're still trying to make sense of who you are and in this moment where you needed support she just up and left, thinking you weren't committed." She slapped her hand onto the empty spot on the bed, beckoning Callie to lay with her.

"No, that's OK--"

"I insist. Your eyes look like you've had a fucked-with telescope ring on them." Despite feeling that pull with Addison she wanted to avoid bringing up, the Latina woman curled up next to her slim friend, still in her scrubs and feeling like death warmed over. The redheaded woman spoke from the heart, seeing the ever-lasting sadness in the soulful eyes of her partner-in-crime. "Do you still blame yourself for screwing things up?"

"I don't know. I knew testing things with Sloan was wrong and I was probably being selfish. But I wised up when she made it clear she was serious. I wanted to be serious. Instead, all this happens, she ends it, and here I am again, still the girl eating my hair in high school." She frowned, trying to shy away from confessing her feelings, but knowing this was the time to do so. "I did really love her. Why didn't she understand that?"

"I can't tell you that. I don't know her," Addison said with honesty, taking her hand into Callie's and rubbing soothing circles into it. "I have no idea why she could've ever left you. Did she try to understand that you need time to love again. After what George did to you, that time to heal was needed and I was under the hope that when you both decided to date that she would give you that consideration. Instead she acted like you were exclusive and avoided you when you needed those heart to hearts. That didn't help you at all and suddenly, you're under the assumption that this isn't serious and you're scared because you don't know what to do to love a woman." Addison further talked about how she saw the relationship, Callie listening intently as the woman next to her described her situation with more clarity than she ever had. With no one to talk to besides Christina, she was by default, alone without Addison at least calling her in that disconnected sense.

But even then, she couldn't have known how devastated she felt everyday she walked back into the medical center where her heart had been broken. She felt like a shell, worked longer hours to distract herself from her unhappiness, shrugged off all of her co-worker's demands she needed counseling. She knew she didn't need it, because it was their fault in the first place for not letting her and Hahn grow organically, alone.

Then when it came out she had the relationship she was further isolated. Webber had pretty much asserted silently that she was to blame for the surgeon leaving his employ, while others avoided her thinking she was unhappy. Which she was. She no longer had the happiness or passion she had for her work when she came in three years ago. She never wanted to be a part of the petty drama among the residents, but ended up within it despite.

Working herself tired, she was sad, hurt, and felt in despair.

But most of all, she missed Addison. With the neo-natal goddess by her side, she felt more like herself.

With 1,200 miles of I-5 separating them for a year and a half, however, she felt that one woman who had become umbilical in her existence had taken her heart with her.

Her deep brown eyes staring into the iridescent blue pupils of her sun-kissed friend, Callie felt a point of realization at that moment.

Maybe the reason I couldn't give my heart to Erica...was that my heart was already with Addison. Remembering back a few months to the lunchroom conversation where she tried to assert she 'like(d) penis', Callie remembered that schoolgirl smirk of Addison's as she saw right through her that no, she also liked vagina a bit too and was curious about it.

She remembered feeling a spark at that moment at the idea of kissing Addison to test whether she liked penis. But she felt too afraid to dare cross that line, even though she knew that within everyday conversation, sexual entendres, quite a bit of fliriting and a few questionable touches of hands were just par for the course.

Addison pulled against her, brushing hair out of Callie's eyes. "You just need time to disengage. To break away from the world and find out who you are, Cal. It's clear that you're unhappy with work, and it's time to get away from that for awhile."

"What are you suggesting?" Callie asked, a bit stunned. "I...Ads, I don't know...it just seems too hard to disengage. I don't...I don't know..."

She wandered off as she felt Addison press into her, in normal circumstances what would be a soothing and friendly motion intended to calm her down. But at that moment, Callie felt so many conflicting emotions.

But so did Addison.

After so much time away from Seattle, she knew one paramount reason she ran away to a new life.

She was afraid to face her own future. With Callie in her arms, and circumstance bringing them together in this situation outside the hospital, she finally had that time she so desperately needed to realize that she could never fall for another man again.

Even as she dated in the City of Angels, she never felt a connection. She saw at work others unhappy with monogamy and love. Sloan was no longer there to tempt her, and all feelings for her ex-husband were eradicated. Without those hurdles in the way, she had many nights in her own bed spent questioning her life.

Her mind was still in a small haze, but it was as clear as it could be. The softness of the woman, the olive shade of her friend's skin, the way she spoke in such a powerful way. After she would end her calls with Callie, she would hold the phone for at least an hour, before hanging it up and thinking one thing.

_I miss seeing her every day of my life._

She hated seeing her heart broken by Hahn. She wanted to come up, but petty work drama kept her at Oceanside. When she had been hearing Dr. Wharton call Callie all of those names, her anger boiled over that she was being slapped down with such a crude title just because she chose to love differently. When Callie called her that one night to tell her what was going on, they both stayed on the phone with each other for six hours, until the raven-haired beauty was all cried out and exhausted. She had received a few interruptions during the call via knocks on the door and chirps from call waiting.

They were all ignored. Her first instinct was to make it known to Callie that not only was she still an important presence in Callie's life, but she was loved.

**Loved.**

A word that had floated in Addison's mind for months when it came to Callie. She didn't know how to describe how she felt for her anymore. She was buried in her work, yet felt that sense of longing for her friend that went beyond basic concern. In her quiet moments she would worry for Callie, feel all of her pain, try to figure out how she could still be a good friend to her with 3/4 of the American Pacific coast keeping them apart.

She would go to bed and dream of the woman. Sometimes just in friendly moments, and sometimes in dreams that made her wake up in the middle of the night with soaked panties. She didn't even dream of her guys down there in that way and felt chagrined that she would lay a claim on Callie in her dreams when she was happy with Erica.

_Was that Big Mama Montgomery coming out to protect her lady?_ Addison was lost in thought as she stared at Callie, her fingers intertwining with the other woman. Brushing against green-polished nails, she knew that she missed the woman so much, that a pathetic podiatrist with no threat at all to her received the brunt of her pain about not being there for her friend.

Addison knew she was a beautiful woman. She felt that way all the time. But she never felt fulfilled.

Her thoughts were broken by three words. Softly uttered, the rough-and-tumble young Cuban-American could no longer hold back how her heart hurt the last few months.

"Addy?"

"Yes."

"I miss you." She sobbed and lowered herself into the hollow of Addison's throat. She felt protective arms wrap around her as Addison felt the last of her defenses melt away. "Sticking up for me...taking the hit...I don't ever know how to thank you."

It was full circle. Hours earlier Addison was begging Callie to pay her back for bail. Now Callie was asking her to just be there for her. Beneath the blankets of the bed, two women, worn from a year of hell, finally felt that elusive connection that had not brought them together in an intimate moment before then.

She thought of making a joke about not dating Dr. Wharton. But after so long without Callie, Addison didn't want to lose her. She wanted to feel the security of her 'big girl' once again in her life, and never wanted to be starved for the woman who was her true best friend ever again.

She pecked Callie's forehead with her lips, and then felt tears drift down from Callie's face and onto her shoulder. Then another kiss. With a bare flit of her tongue against Callie's skin, she took in the salty tang of her flesh. Barely a taste, but barely enough.

Then, reassurance. "I miss you too, Cal." Her honesty was deep from her heart. "I should have never left you."

"I...I understand." But it would not die. Addison felt the need to pay her penance.

"You're my friend. I should be there for you. But leaving for LA for a job I'm unhappy in?" She sighed, looking down. "I don't want to be there anymore. I just want to work. I don't want to have to balance financial statements and make sure we can all get paid every week. Nor do I want to have to take on things I'm personally uncomfortable with."

"But you seem so happy down there." The tough voice was no soft, like that of a girl trying to understand why a life change was about to come,

Addison closed her eyes and brushed her fingers through Callie's hair. The entire night, the bar, the jail, it was all forgotten. The women were in their own small world, four sides of a mattress the only place that mattered in that moment. The tall woman broke her silence about the matter, with the only person in her life who truly mattered in the end.

"I'm only happy with you."

The words had never been planned at all. Addison had never planned to say a word about her situation. She would have been happy to go back to LA and pretend things were fine.

But with happiness in her arms, she no longer wanted to let go. She expected Callie to let go. To leave, and think. To reconsider whether her friendship with Addison was for the best.

Instead, she felt fingers slide into hers. Then, her hand was moved to Callie's waist, to slide beneath the hem of the blue article which made up her hospital uniform.

Callie's breath was raspy. Her pulse was racing, her body, unwilling to move. Eyes on her friend, she allowed Addison to breach the line they flirted with since they first met. That pull, that want, that need...

She had always known she was an abnormal person. But she knew that she always had love to give. And when George had torn her heart out, Addison was there to fix it for her. Not anyone else in the world.

Addison. The woman was perfect, she was quiet and strict, and had a beauty about her that she had never found, not even in Erica. Although Erica could be fun, she could also be angry for the smallest reason.

But tonight, Addison was angered for only one reason.

Because her best friend was verbally attacked by someone who would never know her heart.

The words slid through her ears. In them, she didn't hear any sarcasm or a disclaimer that she was only happy when it was convenient or Mark was pursuing either of them.

"You...you...you...you...you..."

The echo cascaded through Callie's soul. She's happy with only me, she thought.

Her cold heart turned warm again. Feeling fingers placed on her sides, she slid down to eye level with her best friend, a woman she was only half with.

She cried. She smiled. She slid her other hand upon Addison's warm skin, the fragrance of the King County Jail overwhelmed with Addison's raw scent.

She was not afraid. No fear in her eyes. Fingers shaking, she traced her index finger to the right side of Addison's chest, and then traced the outline of the woman's heart against the skin. From memory she remembered the shape of the muscle. Her lip trembled as she saw Addison react, eyes half-lidded, the moment unbroken between them.

And then, a moment she had chased elusively since Addison left her all those months ago, scared for her life but unwilling to make room for a new one...

"You're here with me. That's all I want." She laid a kiss upon the skin above Addison's heart. "I'm happy now."

"Callie..." Addison drew out the name like a drawl. "D--d--do you...do you...do you...you know?"

There was no hesitation at all. Callie could not leave Addison in wait.

"Yes," she spoke, plainly. "I love you. I miss you. And I want you...to come back home."

"Home?" Addison was unsure of the concept.

"To me. To us." Callie was soft with her, pushing aside the material of the bra. "To what we should have been had you not been chased out." She laid kisses along the bared shoulder. Addison showed no resistance. "Erica...she was a stepping stone." Kiss. "So was Mark." Another kiss.

Then, a brush of lips against Addison's chin. "She said it was leaves that made her see who she was. But for me...for me." Breath against her pursed lips. Hands neutrally resting. Only warm breaths keeping them apart.

"Not leaves. Addison, you're my lighthouse." She described the concept, how it had been paramount in her life. How her father and mother had seen the Cape Florida lighthouse as they fled from Cuba and knew that they had found their safe harbor. She remembered thinking it was a silly concept through her teen years, only to have it become front and center in her dreams since she had first met the intriguing woman those few years ago. She felt adrift and alone, thinking George and Erica would indeed be those lighthouses, but always finding they were just small buoys in rough seas.

But always, she drifted towards the guiding light which was Addison. She kept swimming, hoping, praying for her back in her life.

"And now I have you. Luminous. Full of life. Fierce, beautiful, stern and strong. That's you, Addison. You're my lighthouse. My beacon." A soft brush of lips. Addison's tears fell freely. "No matter what happens, we gravitate back to each other. That's why I never saw leaves. Why Erica was not bound for me. Because I moved towards the light. Like a moth to the flame. I drew to you. Your heat. Your power. Your soul..."

Another lingering peck. And final words. "You're my heart, Ads."

She tried to rationalize that it was wrong. That she shouldn't get too close. If she was to fall in love, it had to be with somebody else, not her best friend.

But she tried picturing things ending badly for them, in the future. The way she foresaw in the past her relationships ending, they almost always came true, and if they didn't, they were pretty damn close to the reality.

Not with Callie. In that moment of foresight she couldn't find the woman yelling at her to leave. Nor did she see the surgeon breaking her own heart. Through the last two years she was kicked around in love like a lost puppy, finding happiness and having it stripped out by external factors.

One external factor, mostly. But unless Izzie Stevens was about to burst into the room and ruin everything, there was no way she could interfere with this at all.

She pulled the woman close to her, soft, supple skin and heaving breasts weighing against her slight and firm build. Looking into expressive brown pools, she knew her future was no longer in Santa Monica.

It was with her savior. Not just in the sense that the woman above her had bailed her out of jail, but remained in all of these months a station of sanity, a phone that was almost always answered, or a late night e-mail answered the next morning with encouragement, along with disdain at how her colleagues treated her like a doormat instead of the strong and independent woman she was and always remained.

Shared breaths between them. Callie's heartbeat pounding against Addison's finessed hands. She felt the woman's pull, and wasn't ready to let go.

Pursed red lips opened up, a luscious tongue peeking out. Then...

"You're my home, Cal." The small kisses then lead up to a full and deep buss, of longing, heartbreak, loss and need, one both women had searched for in so many others for the years they had known each other. Hands moved up into Callie's hair, and then Addison's filly-like mane was undone out of a ponytail. The kiss began slowly, lingering, both of them searching for their rhythm, which only took a few moments. Soon it became hungry and wanton, eyes closed and Callie daring to slither her tongue into the mouth of her best friend. She was quickly welcomed in closer, while her body took a tightness that was unlike that she had felt before.

They soon pushed things further along with a zeal that surprised them both. Nary a compliment had been exchanged through all of that time about how they looked, as there was no need. They both knew that they had an intimate connection and could read their faces that the either looked beautiful or hot. But Callie still whispered that even in torn stockings, Addison was still a 'fiery goddess' to her.

She complimented her on this for one reason; to hear that deep throaty laugh that drove her wild in the dreams she had of Addison. "You're gonna tear a Givenchy off me one of these days, aren't you?"

"Are you offering?" She moved a bit up in order to let Addison slide the scrub shirt off her full figure, baring a more practical purple racerback sports bra that would usually be kind of plain and unexciting. But Addison's face lit up at that moment from the flirty smirk playing across her friend's face as she laughed softly.

"It's a sin you even have to hide that figure behind clothes," Callie husked as she reached back to unsnap Addison's bra. "Although...am I the first girl to see you naked tonight?"

And at that moment she managed to make Addison blush so deeply she felt heat radiate from her body. The woman groaned, shaking her head, but knowing honesty was the best policy.

"My stature in life unfortunately doesn't matter to one Officer Cherise Dunkirk of the King County Sheriff's Office." As her bra was unhooked, she shared the embarrassment she prayed to every deity she knew that Callie would never reveal to anyone. "Do I look like I carry a handgun or a switchblade on me?"

"No, but you always hold a beautiful wit."

"Sure, flatter the girl who had to have a strip search," she said wearingly. "I didn't have to strip out of my undies, but it was definitely full and it went in every freakin' cavity I had, right down each article. I know, procedure and all that, but am I really going to carry drugs in?" Callie's eyes sparkled and before she knew it, Addison was the unfortunate recipient of torrents of laughter as the younger woman almost began to cry from how much it amused her that Addison, the most innocent girl in Connecticut outside of Rory Gilmore (since she's still in denial that seasons 5-7 of that show ever happened), ended up having to go through a strip search.

"Did she have on...a fucking...rubber glove...oh my God!!" She slapped the mattress with a fist as Addison had to admit there was too much humor in her situation to let it go fallow. "She didn't go...all up in...your stuff..."

Before, she was blushing. Now she was just entirely pale. Which made Callie stop in her tracks.

"She looked. But she didn't dare touch."

"Oh-kay." Callie cleared her throat, trying to bring her out of that mortifying memory. "Remind me never to get that drunk."

"You are reminded." Then Addison found her energy coming back again as she held Callie tight. "Can you make me forget, please? I'd rather remember this night for finally getting off my ass and getting to know you intimately than punching out Dr. McShuddery."

"McShuddery? Lame." A quick thought. "How about Dr. McWillhavea400footrestrainingorderfromusinthenextfewdaysbecauseeewwisthatsickocreepy?"

"Does that fit on a slate?"

"Do you care...Addison?" Smiling down at her and then sliding fingers beneath her sports bra before taking it out to free her lovely breasts, Callie soon made it clear that jail and alcohol discussion would be verboten for the next 29 hours.

"I really don't." She stretched onto her legs to envelope Callie in, her nose touching the other woman's. "What I care about is finally finding out if my best friend can indeed turn me out, around, in and leave me nothing but a puddle."

"How big a puddle?" Callie dared.

Laying a kiss down on Callie's lips, that deep voice which oozed sex asserted how much. "I want the management to force me to buy this bed when I check out in a few days."

"Ruin it for anybody else?"

Addison nodded knowingly. "You've already ruined me, hon, and you haven't even got in my pants yet."

So you want to play dirty, eh? Callie quirked her eyebrow and pushed the woman down, her hands shamelessly grasping at her friend's yoga-firmed ass. "We need to change that situation then."

"We do." And with that, no more words, at least within coherent sentences, need be spoken as the two doctors finally found themselves in each other after having chased others for the years they knew each other.

Because when it came down to everything, they only needed themselves. In that room, they didn't need anybody else. And as the two women from different parts of the nation came together, they were thankful that they had been able to come together again at a critical point in their lives. Making long and enjoyable love with each other, Addison and Callie proved that the end of the journey was more worthwhile than the trip towards their destination.

That the journey would later see them leave the career pathe that darkened their souls and meet halfway in an Oregon coastal town in their own fruitful practice with other doctors who only wanted to care was not known to them yet. Nor did they know at that moment how their families would react, or how that simple statement of Callie's would see them vow on the grounds in front of a lighthouse a few years later. Nor could they forsee that Addison's one entry on her criminal record would had led them to admit their feelings in the first place and close their records on their own searches for someone special.

Hours later laying in that bed, Addison spooned into her beautiful lover and snoozing softly while Callie finally got the rest and peace she had been searching for so long to find, they were both exhausted, emotional, and felt their connection strengthen with each new time they came together, whether it be in beautiful love or limitless conversation.

They were finally together, not as they planned, but they were both in love. And they would fight to stay that way.

But with one stipulation on Callie's part.

"Ads."

"Yes, hon?" She whispered.

"I will never pretend to have jail sex with you again."

"Hey! You said it was fun."

"It is, but, I never want you anywhere near a jail again."

"Even if it caused this wonderful memory?" Addison winked and Callie rolled back her eyes.

"If we have children, we dirty-danced in a club. I didn't bail you outta jail."

"I'll wear you down," Addison promised as she straddled atop Callie, deciding it was time for round five. "You know you love it dirty."

"I do, but--"

"Cal?"

"Yeah?" Looking up at her lover's nude form, she knew she was in for it.

"Consider what I'm about to do $50 of payback." She moved down and did indeed, prove that awesome sex need not be paid for or filled with emotional fretting in any way.

And that was damned fine with Callie.  


* * *

**_THE END._ **


End file.
